Gnome Terminal and Session management Query

[Phil Meyer]

Dan Track wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Dan Track <dan.track at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 5:14 PM, Dan Track <dan.track at gmail.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I've got fedora 9 installed and I'd like it to store sessions for all
>>> my routers,switches, firewalls, servers etc just like putty and
>>> securecrt do. How can I manage that in a sensible way, I've got nearly
>>> a 100 different devices so a long list wouldn't be ideal, something
>>> like creating folders e.g network, linux and then storing the sessions
>>> in there would be good.
>>>
>>> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Dan
>>>       
>> Hey Guys,
>>
>> Can anyone give any thoughts on this? I just need to save profiles in
>> a logical way!
>>
>> Thanks
>> Dan
>>     
>
> Hi
>
> Guess no one has this type of problem. I'm curious how do you guys
> then manage all your servers and network devices? Do you memorise the
> hostnames or ip addresses and ssh or telnet in every time you need log
> in?
>
> Is there something fundamental I'm missing?
>
> Dan
>
>   

As others have mentioned, most older UNIX/Linux admins don't use sessions.

However, there are ways of doing things that most Junior admins I train 
don't know about and therefore, don't, or haven't previously, used.

Firstly:

Set your shell history appropriately.  Personally, I keep 500, and set 
the shell I use to remember them between log ins.

Secondly: Use sudo ALWAYS for administration tasks that require 
privileges.  The /var/log/secure file can then be very useful.

Thirdly: use a tabbed terminal, such as gnome-terminal, or better yet, 
konsole.  In addition to plain tabs, konsole can send the input from one 
tab into as many other tabs as you like.  Consider using konsole to log 
into everything on Monday mornings and just leave it there all week.  
Need to check disk space on a few servers?  Take two seconds to bind 
inputs and check them all by typing df -h once.  The new 4.1 version of 
konsole is GREAT!

Fourthly:  Learn to customize your own ~/.ssh/config file.  The options 
are long and various, but consider at least these four, for convenience 
sake: ForwardX11 yes, StrictHostKeyChecking no, ServerAliveCountMax 10, 
ServerAliveInterval 30

Forwarding X11 used to be a default, but is not needed by most users, 
and is off by default, now days.  With it on, you can ssh to a server, 
and run: sudo  system-whatever-config and have it display on your desktop.

Strict host checking off, avoids the 'yes' question every time you log 
into a new host, and especially, rebuilt hosts -- for us guys that 
rebuild lab equipment constantly, that one is useful!  The last two, 
will prevent sshd from dropping a connection due to inactivity.

Lastly:  create a set of rsa and dsa keys, fix up an 
~/.ssh/authorized_hosts file and copy that to every system you 
maintain.  You will be glad you did, and its more secure than logging in 
with a password.  Imagine, logging in using ssh keys with no passwd 
prompt is actually more secure than logging in using a password.  Let 
that gel in your brain a bit.

Good Luck!